3 Undervalued Biotechnology & Medical Research Stocks for Friday, May 26

By Cynthia McLaughlin
May 26, 2023
Diamond graphic indicating best value stocks in their industry
Featured Tickers:
TNXP TOVX VRPX

Based on key financial metrics such as the price-to-sales ratio, shareholder yield and the price-earnings ratio, the following 3 stocks made the list for top value stocks in the Biotechnology & Medical Research industry. Those looking for value stocks to add to their portfolio may want to use this list as a starting point for further investment research.

Latest Biotechnology & Medical Research Stock News

Before choosing which top Biotechnology & Medical Research stock to buy, be sure to conduct proper due diligence: analyze various financial metrics and look at historical data, public statements and news coverage.

The Biotechnology and Medical Research sub-industry has a positive outlook, a historically defensive sub-industry. Drug sales are anticipated to have high growth, primarily driven by COVID-19 therapeutics, the continued adoption of many new and innovative therapies, a favorable M&A environment, and a low prevalence of patent expirations in 2022. Additionally, companies could see prescription growth pick up as in-person physician visits return to pre-pandemic levels. As COVID-19 variants have emerged, vaccine boosters have been offered in order to increase efficacy. Due to this, repeat vaccinations will likely be necessary for lifelong immunity which would provide a long-lasting and significant source of revenue for lead vaccine developers. Aside from vaccines, the biotech industry is dependent on the volume of new therapy approvals. The FDA’s heavy focus on COVID-19 could slow the approvals on non-COVID-19 therapies. Despite this, the biotech industry will likely see promising sales growth over the next five years as it usually takes at least five years for new drugs to reach peak sales levels. Approval activity has also been on the rise recently. Mergers and acquisitions activity is expected to remain low as a more activist Federal Trade Commission (led by Lina Khan) could be more skeptical of proposed mergers. Year to date through June 30, the S&P 1500 Biotech Index was down 1.6%, vs. a 20.5% decline for the S&P 1500 Composite Index. In 2021, the Biotech Index rose 8.2%, vs. a 26.7% gain for the Composite Index.

Why Focus on Undervalued Biotechnology & Medical Research Stocks?

Value investors seek to buy stocks at a discount to their intrinsic value. Long-term returns show that such strategies are advantageous. Value stocks, as a group, tend to outperform growth stocks over extended periods of time. Typically, value investors perform financial analysis of numerous metrics, don’t follow the herd and are long-term investors.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade is derived from a stock’s Value Score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

What Goes Into AAII’s Value Grade?

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data as well as the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movement. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors with that task.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A–F grades for more than just value. It is possible for a stock to appear cheap based on one valuation metric but appear expensive on another. It is also possible for one valuation ratio to be associated with outperforming stocks during certain periods of time but not others. Some stocks may even have null values for certain metrics like the price-earnings ratio or the price-to-book ratio but not others. An example of this would be a company with losses instead of profits or a negative book value because of heavy borrowing. Negative earnings or book value result in non-meaningful ratios that are left blank or null.

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3 Undervalued Biotechnology & Medical Research Stocks

Of course, there are countless value stocks that are worth mentioning, but this is a concise list of the top 3 undervalued stocks in the Biotechnology & Medical Research industry for Friday, May 26, 2023. Let’s take a closer look at their individual scores to see how they measure up against each other and the Biotechnology & Medical Research industry median.

Company Ticker Price/Sales Price/Earnings EV/EBITDA Shareholder Yield Price/Book Value Price/Free Cash Flow Value Grade
Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp TNXP na na 0.3 (288.3%) 0.10 na B
Theriva Biologics Inc TOVX na na 1.0 (9.4%) 0.21 na A
Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc VRPX na na 0.4 -0.0% 0.61 na A

The Value Grade is assigned based on how each stock’s composite valuation compares to all other stocks.

The process for assigning grades starts with each variable for a given stock. The percentile rankings for all valid ratios that a stock has are calculated. So, for instance, a stock could have a price-to-book ranking in the 43rd percentile, a price-earnings ranking in the 67th percentile, a price-to-sales ranking in the 23rd percentile, etc. Then, those rankings are averaged for each stock. (A minimum of two valid variables are required, though all six will be used if available.)

Once the average of the individual variables is calculated, that average is ranked against all stocks. Put another way, each stock’s composite valuation is compared to all other stocks. These ranks are then sorted into quintiles from the cheapest 20% (a grade of A) to the most expensive 20% (a grade of F).

As always, we recommend that you conduct proper due diligence and research before investing in any security. We also suggest that investors utilize numerous grades, not just value, when it comes to deciding whether a company is a good fit for their allocation needs.

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Metric Score TNXP Industry Median
Price/Sales na na 9.15
Price/Earnings na na 13.3
EV/EBITDA 2 0.3 0.6
Shareholder Yield 99 (288.3%) (6.1%)
Price/Book Value 1 0.10 1.71
Price/Free Cash Flow na na 21.9

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The Company is focused on developing therapeutics and vaccines to treat and prevent human disease and alleviate suffering. Its portfolio consists of central nervous system (CNS), rare disease, immunology, and infectious disease product candidates. The CNS portfolio includes small molecules and biologics to treat pain, neurologic, psychiatric and addiction conditions. Its immunology portfolio includes biologics to address organ transplant rejection, autoimmune diseases and cancer. Its infectious disease portfolio includes a vaccine in development to prevent smallpox and mpox, vaccines to prevent COVID-19, a platform to make fully human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), to treat COVID-19 and humanized anti-SARS-CoV-2 mAbs. Its rare disease portfolio focuses on developing novel therapies for patients with rare diseases. Its product candidates include TNX-102 SL, TNX-102 SL, TNX-1900, TNX-601 ER and others.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp has a Value Score of 76, which is considered to be undervalued.

Now, let’s assess Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp’s EV/EBITDA ratio, also known as enterprise multiple. At 0.3, when compared to the industry median of 0.6, the company may be considered undervalued in relation to its peers. Value investors could use the enterprise multiple to identify stocks that are considered overvalued or undervalued relative to their industry.

Shareholder yield is the sum of a stock’s dividend yield (paid over previous 12 months minus special dividends) and the percentage of net share buybacks over the previous 12 months. Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp’s shareholder yield is lower than its industry median ratio of (6.14%). Value investors may look for an attractive shareholder yield because it can be a powerful tool for identifying if the company has a good management team.

As one of the most common value metrics, the price-to-book ratio evaluates a company’s current market price relative to its book value. Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp’s price-to-book ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 1.71. This could make Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp more attractive to investors looking for a new addition to their portfolio.

Theriva Biologics Inc’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Metric Score TOVX Industry Median
Price/Sales na na 9.15
Price/Earnings na na 13.3
EV/EBITDA 4 1.0 0.6
Shareholder Yield 80 (9.4%) (6.1%)
Price/Book Value 3 0.21 1.71
Price/Free Cash Flow na na 21.9

Theriva Biologics, Inc. is a diversified clinical-stage company developing therapeutics designed to treat cancer and related diseases in areas of high unmet need. The Company is advancing a new oncolytic adenovirus platform designed for intravenous (IV), intravitreal and antitumoral delivery to trigger tumor cell death, improve access of co-administered cancer therapies to the tumor, and promote a robust and sustained anti-tumor response by the patients immune system. The Company?s lead candidates are: VCN-01, an oncolytic adenovirus designed to replicate selectively and aggressively within tumor cells, and to degrade the tumor stroma barrier; SYN-004 (ribaxamase) which is designed to degrade used IV beta-lactam antibiotics within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract to prevent microbiome damage, and SYN-020, a recombinant oral formulation of the enzyme intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP) produced under cGMP conditions and intended to treat both local GI and systemic diseases.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Theriva Biologics Inc has a Value Score of 85, which is considered to be undervalued.

Theriva Biologics Inc’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Theriva Biologics Inc less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 1.71.

You can read more about Theriva Biologics Inc’s key financial metrics like shareholder yield, price-to-free-cash-flow and EV/EBITDA ratio, or learn more about its Momentum and Growth Grades, by subscribing to A+ Investor.

Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Metric Score VRPX Industry Median
Price/Sales na na 9.15
Price/Earnings na na 13.3
EV/EBITDA 2 0.4 0.6
Shareholder Yield 50 -0.0% (6.1%)
Price/Book Value 14 0.61 1.71
Price/Free Cash Flow na na 21.9

Virpax Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a preclinical-stage pharmaceutical company. The Company is focused on developing novel and drug delivery systems. Its drug-delivery systems and drug-releasing technologies being developed are focused on advancing non-opioid and non-addictive pain management treatments and treatments for central nervous system (CNS) disorders to enhance patients? quality of life. Its portfolio consists of multiple preclinical stage product candidates: Epoladerm, Probudur, Envelta, PES200, AnQlar and NobrXiol. Probudur is a drug product candidate based on a liposomal delivery system utilizing large multi-vesicular vesicles (LMVVs) encapsulating a high dose of the local anesthetic bupivacaine. PES200 enables the delivery of a metabolically labile peptide drug (Enkephalin) into the brain for post-traumatic stress disorder. NobrXiol is being developed by Nanomerics as an investigational formulation delivered via the nasal route to enhance Cannabidiol transport to the brain.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc has a Value Score of 93, which is considered to be undervalued.

Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 1.71.

You can read more about Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc’s key financial metrics like shareholder yield, price-to-free-cash-flow and EV/EBITDA ratio, or learn more about its Momentum and Growth Grades, by subscribing to A+ Investor.

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Other Biotechnology & Medical Research Stock Grades

Value is just one of the five Stock Grades included in our A+ Investor service. AAII members can see the top-graded stocks—those with grades of A or B for value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality—on the A+ Stock Grades Screener.

Also, if you want full access to all of AAII’s premium services, you can subscribe to one convenient bundled plan called AAII Platinum where you can try out A+ Investor, AAII Dividend Investing, the Stock Superstars Report, Growth Investing and VMQ Stocks. With the other premium services, you can dive deep into additional metrics, portfolios, commentary and information about Biotechnology & Medical Research stocks as well as other industrys.

Choosing Which of the 3 Best Biotechnology & Medical Research Stocks Is Right for You

Choosing which value stocks to invest in will ultimately depend on your individual goals and allocation; however, comparing similar value stocks in the same industry can help you analyze which might be better investments for you in the long run. So, let’s take a look at the Value Grade for all of our stocks.

  • Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp stock has a Value Grade of B.
  • Theriva Biologics Inc stock has a Value Grade of A.
  • Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc stock has a Value Grade of A.

Now that you have a bit more background about each of the 3 undervalued stocks in the Biotechnology & Medical Research industry as well as their overall grades, it’s time for you to conduct additional research to see if these could fit your portfolio needs based on your goals and risk tolerance. AAII can help you figure out both and identify which investments align with what works best for you.

We do so through a program of education that teaches you to invest for yourself and become an effective manager of your own wealth—no more relying on others for your financial independence. You can rely on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis that makes you a better investor.

A+ Investor adds to that qualitative teaching by giving you a powerful data suite that helps you whittle down investment decisions to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

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Additional Resources About Biotechnology & Medical Research Stocks

Want to learn more about Biotechnology & Medical Research stocks to see if they could be the right investment for you? Check out some additional resources and articles to help you on your financial journey.

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.



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